Whether she was performing for Charles Lindbergh, teaching students at her dance studio or sewing costumes for the California Ballet Company, Mrs. Jennings Small embraced and promoted dance in San Diego for more than 80 years.

She danced at the 1924 opening of the Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego, and nearly half a century later helped start the ballet company. In the intervening years, she opened a dance studio, married a Marine, survived the attack on Pearl Harbor and raised two daughters, who would also become immersed in the world of dance.

Mrs. Jennings Small died of cancer Nov. 1 in Chula Vista. She was 96.

She studied ballet through correspondence courses in the early 1920s and later commuted by train to Los Angeles to study with Russian dancer Theodore Kosloff. In addition to frequent performances at the Del Mar Hotel, she danced for Lindbergh at the Hotel del Coronado. In a 1973 interview with The San Diego Union, Mrs. Jennings Small said she loved dance so much that when she was a child she would get up at 5 a.m. to practice before going to school.

She started teaching dance when she was in her teens and was also performing regularly. Mrs. Jennings Small had two opportunities for world dancing tours, but both fell through. In the 1973 newspaper interview, she recounted that she was scheduled for a 1932 world tour with a Los Angeles dance company but shortly before leaving, she broke both ankles during a toboggan trip in the mountains. She later had a chance to dance abroad as a soloist, but the company’s director died before the tour began. “I guess I was destined to remain in San Diego,” she said.

Generations of San Diegans benefitted from the change of plans. She choreographed dance programs throughout the county and taught countless students at studios she opened in La Jolla, La Mesa and Paradise Hills.

She was born Nov. 8, 1912, in the Otay area ﻿to Ione and Alvah Downs. She grew up in the Bostonia area of El Cajon and attended Grossmont High School. She opened a dance studio in the 1930s and met a young Marine who came in to learn to waltz so he could impress a girlfriend. The Marine, Johnny Jennings, ended up marrying his dance teacher a year later.

By 1941, the couple had a baby daughter and had moved to Hawaii, where Jennings was stationed. After the Pearl Harbor attack, mother and child returned to San Diego, where Mrs. Jennings Small was among the many women who worked at Rohr Aircraft in Chula Vista. Her husband didn’t return until a few years later.

In the 1950s and ’60s, she was busy raising her two daughters, being president of their school PTA and active in the National City chapter of PEO, an international philanthropic, educational women’s group. She also reopened her dance school in Paradise Hills.

“Dance was her passion since she was very young and it was part of her life until she died,” said her granddaughter, Clarissa Palhegyi.

Mrs. Jennings Small encouraged and helped her daughter Maxine Mahon found the California Ballet Company. Another daughter, Marlene, was a dancer with the company. Mrs. Jennings Small also started the California Ballet Association and was on the board of trustees for 41 years. She helped design and sew costumes for the dancers for many years.

Longtime friend Robert Arnhym ﻿said Mrs. Jennings Small was a prominent part of San Diego’s dance history. “She was one of the most visible ballerinas (in the early years). Her interest in dance in this community really kept it alive,” Arnhym said. “She helped establish the (California Ballet) company and was a continuing donor.”

She and her first husband were active volunteers with the dance company. He helped build sets, while she was the wardrobe mistress. A 1973 article in The Evening Tribune noted that she had stitched the 3,000th costume for the dance troupe. “I got into costuming as a necessity,” Mrs. Jennings Small said in the interview. “When I was dancing, my mother and I made my costumes. When I began teaching, I needed costumes for recitals.”

In addition to her dance activities, Mrs. Jennings Small was active in her church, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Chula Vista. She taught Bible study classes and knitted scarves for veterans.

After her husband of more than 50 years died in 1988, she married longtime family friend Frank Small in 1991.

Mrs. Jennings Small is survived by her husband, Frank; two daughters, Maxine Mahon of San Diego and Marlene Jennings of Seattle; a stepson, Clifford Small of Hawaii; a granddaughter; six stepgrandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Services were held Nov. 7.

The family suggests donations in Mrs. Jennings Small’s name to The California Ballet Company, 4819 Ronson Court, San Diego, CA 92111.